Will Smith once again successfully hitting the No.1 spot at the box office with 'Hancock'. With USD$107Million for the opening weekend [inclusive of early openings from Tuesday], compared to my projections of USD$80Million, easily knocking off Wall.E to the No.2 spot with USD$33million [cumulative for 2 weeks now stands at USD$128Million]. - Ibrahem.S
Last week, Will Smith took home yet another gold medal at the box office with his superhero-with-an-attitude actioner Hancock which opened at number one over the Fourth of July holiday weekend nearly doubling the gross of the frame's silver medalist. Sony's critically-panned title collected an estimated $66M over the Friday-to-Sunday period and a solid $107.3M since its launch on Tuesday night with previews beginning at 7pm. The three-day average was a strong $16,646 from 3,965 locations.
Its five-and-a-half-day tally was the fourth biggest opening for the extended Independence Day holiday frame trailing 2004's Spider-Man 2 ($180.1M in six days), last year's Transformers ($155.4M in six-and-a-half days), and 2005's War of the Worlds ($112.7M in six days). Since the holiday falls on a different day each year prompting studios to bow their films in various ways, comparisons are not always fair. But in all three cases, the extended openings accounted for 48-49% of the eventual final domestic gross.
Smith once again proved that he's Hollywood's most bankable box office draw. Hancock was the actor's eighth consecutive number one opener, eighth consecutive film to break the $100M mark, and gave the actor his seventh consecutive year of having a film reach the nine-digit mark. Co-starring Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron, Hancock offers up a new take on the superhero story with a central character that drinks, curses, and roughs up children. The PG-13 film cost a reported $150M and Smith served as producer as well as star. Reviews were overwhelmingly negative but audiences came out anyway generating sales that were far from a record, but still very healthy nonetheless. Bad buzz could make the weeks ahead rocky though.
Hancock's journey began on Tuesday night with $6.8M, Wednesday's official opening day delivered $17.4M, and Thursday added in $17.1M more. The Fourth of July holiday fell on a Friday this year and saw Hancock take in $18.8M. Saturday climbed 39% to $26.1M while Sunday was estimated to dip by 19% to $21.2M. Sony launched the tentpole pic around the world this weekend and hauled in an additional $78M overseas bringing the global opening to a stellar $185.3M over the past week.
Following its top spot debut last week, Disney/Pixar's animated hit WALL•E fell 47% to second with an estimated $33.4M giving the G-rated toon a sturdy $128.1M in ten days. It was a larger than usual decline for a Pixar pic but the Fourth of July holiday falling on a Friday contributed to the slide. The robot adventure opened 34% higher than last summer's Ratatouille which debuted at the same time, but after ten days the lead was cut in half to 17%. Both periods include the Independence Day holiday.
But thanks to strong midweek sales at a time when kids are out of school, WALL•E's ten-day cume is 10% ahead of Cars and 9% ahead of Kung Fu Panda. Both of those animated hits opened in early June. The road ahead will not be an easy one as two more PG-rated family films open this Friday - the Brendan Fraser adventure film Journey to the Center of the Earth and the Eddie Murphy comedy Meet Dave. At its current pace, WALL•E could find its way to $235-245M domestically. [Source from: boxofficeguru.com]
| # | Title | Jul 4 - 6 | Weeks | Cumulative | Distributor | ||||
| 1 | Hancock | $ 66,000,000 | 1 | $ 107,321,000 | Sony | ||||
| 2 | WALL•E | 33,417,000 | 2 | 128,132,000 | Buena Vista | ||||
| 3 | Wanted | 20,607,000 | 2 | 90,775,000 | Universal | ||||
| 4 | Get Smart | 11,125,000 | 3 | 98,115,000 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 5 | Kung Fu Panda | 7,500,000 | 5 | 193,395,000 | Paramount | ||||
| 6 | The Incredible Hulk | 4,975,000 | 4 | 124,917,000 | Universal | ||||
| 7 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom... | 3,940,000 | 7 | 306,590,000 | Paramount | ||||
| 8 | Kit Kittredge: An American Girl | 3,600,000 | 3 | 6,134,000 | Picturehouse | ||||
| 9 | Sex and the City | 2,340,000 | 6 | 144,859,000 | New Line | ||||
| 10 | You Don't Mess With the Zohan | 2,000,000 | 5 | 94,780,000 | Sony |
